StrangeSox

QUOTE (CrimsonWeltall @ May 1, 2013 -> 08:47 AM) Rumors are that the vehicles it was carrying in the cargo bay got loose and rolled to the back of the plane, which caused the tail to dip and the engines to stall out. This was right after takeoff. looks like an aerodynamic stall (too steep of an angle-of-attack for the wings to generate enough lift), not an engine stall.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ May 1, 2013 -> 08:46 AM) I saw that yesterday. Just dropped from the sky. I guess it lost all power? thoughts are either a huge load shift i.e. something broke loose in the back and caused the weight to suddenly shift rearward, as you can see the plane pitched sharply upward before it fully stalls and starts to fall or something weather related, like an abnormally strong gust of wind knocked it to a high angle and stalled it.

A 747 crashed just after takeoff at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan on Monday. It was caught on a dash cam. http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/0...ft=1&f=1001

QUOTE (zenryan @ Apr 30, 2013 -> 07:33 PM) And for the majority of schools, they arent promoting religion when it comes to these activities(the ones that do should be told to stop). Then again, somehow Christmas tree cookies and Santa cookies have become religious symbols. I hope the same people are protesting Halloween and St Patrick's Day activities in schools. It's not exactly a mystery as to how Christmas trees and a Christian saint became religious symbols.

Public schools are secular institutions that should not be promoting any particular religion over others our no religion at all.

Senator Louie Gohmert; also the government is full of Muslim Brotherhood operatives. http://www.mediaite.com/online/gop-rep-goh...ombing-suspect/

first arrest for Utah's "ag-gag" bill that makes it illegal to secretly film agricultural operations. These sorts of films are how many animal abuses and other violations in the ag industry get brought to light, so of course they're now illegal. http://truth-out.org/news/item/16082-first...e-public-street

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Apr 30, 2013 -> 03:40 PM) And the thing is everyone is talking about it. ESPN wins.

this is sad

The environment is a part of the culture wars:

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Apr 30, 2013 -> 01:44 PM) I prefer fTWTW myself it's good, but it treats all innings as equal instead of placing most of the weight on the 8th and 9th. It does incorporate the Angels' Rally Monkey, though, and that's a good .12-.15 boost in TWTW in late innings when trailing by 2-4 runs.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Apr 30, 2013 -> 01:30 PM) OK, but you are talking about natural forms of bias that come from people being different. Those biases have nothing to do with religious views. Right, so I think that if you believe that being LGBT is a sin, it's going to affect your thoughts in some way. It could be incredibly minor and you can still have great relationships with friends/family, but it's going to be there imo. Really this is more of a tangent and I think we're basically in agreement here, I was just using it as an opportunity to point out that everyone has their own biases.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Apr 30, 2013 -> 01:27 PM) And he wouldnt be terminated for his beliefs. Hed be terminated for his actions on a tv show that were in conflict with his employment agreement. Just because a statement has "religion" in it, does not mean your employer all of a sudden cant do anything. If I walk up to my secretary and say "My religion says I can put my dick in your mouth because Im a man and your my inferior" Do they just sit on their hands and say: "Well s***, its his religion, guess we gotta let him rape a ho." Its absolutely ludicrous that you can not differentiate between "being fired because you are a Christian" and "being fired because you happened to say/do something stupid but had a "religious" context." This is pretty basic. The actual reason why you dont fire Broussard is because a good portion of ESPN's viewers are idiots and this type of controversy drives ratings. Soxbadger that's a silly example. Broussard hasn't infringed on anyone else's rights like you would be doing (either physically or via sexual harassment).

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Apr 30, 2013 -> 01:19 PM) Protected speech and religious beliefs are different though. There's no protection for being racist. Obviously ESPN CAN fire him, I just think he's got a decent discrimination case. He's putting it out there what his beliefs are and if he suddenly gets fired for saying that, how is his termination not based on his religion? Whether firing him would be illegal or merely 'ridiculous' are two different issues. I'd lean in agreement with you that he'd have a discrimination lawsuit if he were fired.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Apr 30, 2013 -> 01:18 PM) Well, believing that interracial marriage is a sin and banning it are two different things. In America, Christians have to understand that their religious beliefs do not give them the right to infringe on the rights of others. Believing that interracial marriage is a sin is not infringing on the rights of others--using the state/federal legislature to ban it is. Believing that Jason Collins is sinning is not infringing on his rights. Going on ESPN and saying so is not infringing on his rights (though I think it was not a good thing for a Christian to do). Telling him that he can or can't do something that all other Americans can do is infringing on his rights. Fun fact: it wasn't until the mid-1990's that a majority of Americans approved of interracial marriage. Compare that with how quickly views have shifted on marriage equality for LGBT.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Apr 30, 2013 -> 01:12 PM) I think in this particular country it is difficult because of the way the rhetoric has gone, but it's certainly possible. I have a couple relatives, a former roommate and several other close friends who are gay and I would like to think none of them feel like I discriminate against them or treat them differently than my straight friends. I think what I said applies much more broadly than to just sexuality and that it applies to basically everybody. I'm never going to be gay, so I'll never know what it's really like to be in those shoes, to see things from their daily perspective, to notice some things that are harder in their lives (even if just a little bit). There's going to be issues I don't even notice because I'm straight and things I take as given that they might not be able to. That includes cultural acceptance, for example I just recently noticed that one of the new Outlook commercials features a lesbian wedding; it would be completely routine for my sexuality to be reflected in the culture around me, but not so much for LGBT people. Despite being a vocal proponent for LGBT rights, I'm sure there are subtle ways that my interactions with my gay brother differ slightly from with my straight brother if only because I'm not gay myself. This applies to any group like that that you're not a part of. I won't ever live life from a woman's perspective, or as a black person etc. That said, the more you interact with people who aren't the same as you, the more likely you are to be aware of these potential biases, to recognize and to work to correct them. When I said that I don't think it's possible to live without bias, I didn't mean intentional or mean-spirited bias, that you can't be a great person and fully accepting of your friends and family. But I don't think it's possible, psychologically, to eliminate them entirely. There was a recent study I was reading about last week that examined this: http://www.boston.com/news/science/blogs/s...aXC1K/blog.html One of the examples they highlight is that the professor was asked for an interview, turned it down, but then changed her mind when she found out the interviewer also went to Yale. That's not even a racial, sexual, etc. prejudice, but it got her thinking about "why did I make this exception for a Yale grad?"

QUOTE (Big Hurtin @ Apr 30, 2013 -> 01:05 PM) Comic sans would be far more appropriate.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Apr 30, 2013 -> 01:08 PM) He gave his personal views on Collins and more specifically whether he's a Christian. I'm not defending what he's saying, i'm defending his right to speak his opinion. He's saying I think it's a sin and he's not a Christian. That has nothing to do with whether he can play basketball or should play basketball. The idea that he should be fired for that is ridiculous. That's discrimination based on religious beliefs, which you guys should be supporting the hell out of. I pointed out pages ago that ESPN likely would have a 1A lawsuit on its hands while explicitly firing someone for being LGBT isn't illegal. edit: would it be ridiculous to fire someone on ESPN for saying that blacks aren't smart enough to play QB even though that's protected speech?

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Apr 30, 2013 -> 01:05 PM) I dont buy that anyone has religious authority over someone else. Its YOUR beliefs. A great deal of those false "advisors" are complete phonies. How about the millions people donated to the Baker family in the 80's, nice job. Well that's a big part of it: who the f*** is Chris Broussard to be making religious proclamations? Is he a theologian in his spare time?

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Apr 30, 2013 -> 01:02 PM) I don't buy that holding a religious belief that homosexuality is wrong automatically makes one bigoted. I think a lot of people who do hold that religious belief do also happen to be bigoted, but the two are not one and the same. You can hold the belief that being an unrepentant homosexual will condemn you in the afterlife yet treat them exactly the same as any other people because it's God's job to judge and not ours. Yet at the same time not judging a person is not the same thing as not believing that they are doing something that is wrong. The difference is subtle, which is why I think Christians are best served keeping these discussions within their own churches and not in public. FWIW I don't think this is actually possible. You might try to work against them, and you might try to treat everyone equally, but everyone always has prejudices. It might not even show up on the individual level, but it would show up systemically.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Apr 30, 2013 -> 12:55 PM) When this country finally gets around to banning discrimination against homosexuals in everyday life like it has most other minorities, then we'll stop connecting these type of comments to the fact of legally enforced discrimination.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Apr 30, 2013 -> 12:46 PM) His statements don't do this. He's condemning them in the context of his personal religion and he's not excluding Collins or gays from anything. This is a serious stretch. He is attempting to exclude Collins for Christianity. Falling back on "but it's my religion!!!" isn't an impenetrable shield for accountability. This is something Broussard believes, and it's a bigoted belief. Plenty of other Christians do not share his bigotry. Your logic here would mean that it isn't bigoted to accuse Jews of blood libel or to argue that blacks are racially inferior because of the mark of Ham because, hey, it's "personal religion!" Bigotry (or racism or sexism or any other discrimination) isn't about actively excluding people or burning crosses. A whole lot of it is 1) s*** exactly like Broussard and 2) soft, indirect and even subconscious prejudice. This is pretty similar to the guy in the news recently for calling something "n*****-rigged," then 'correcting' it to "African-Americanized" and then claiming that there's not a racist bone in his body! It's just an expression!

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Apr 30, 2013 -> 12:48 PM) Again, do you have a code somewhere for the ultimate definition of what being a Christian is/isn't? That's been debated for thousands of years. One guy saying something definitive isn't representative of the entire religion. People in this very thread identify as Christian and totally disagree with him. Yeah, I know, I've pointed that out myself several times. Perhaps you should stop reflexively defending Broussard and recognize that he implicitly claimed authority to declare that Collins isn't a Christian. Again I'm not sure where you're going with this because it doesn't change the bigotry.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Apr 30, 2013 -> 12:44 PM) Right/wrong isn't based on religious belief. That's news to me. I thought most of Christianity held that morality was defined by God. Either way, he was making an explicitly moral argument. You can't accuse someone of committing a sin, a transgression against the rules of God, without making a moral claim. You're being ridiculous here and I don't even know what point you're trying to make.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Apr 30, 2013 -> 12:46 PM) His statements don't do this. He's condemning them in the context of his personal religion and he's not excluding Collins or gays from anything. This is a serious stretch. Bigotry doesn't mean "actively exclude somebody from something." His views on LGBT are bigoted, full-stop. I'd argue that you're the one stretching by making an incredibly narrow definition for bigotry.